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One year ago this autumn,
I reached the culmination of an overwhelming three months of creative work and
collaboration when I designed, wrote and directed The Timekeeper’s Return, a story-based
immersive treasure hunt set in Canterbury’s Cathedral Quarter.
In this series
of blog posts, I want to delve into the detail of how The Timekeeper’s Return
was made, including an overview of how the event turned out on the day and the project’s
legacy – for the participants, the Cathedral Quarter, and my own future as I
continue to work in the area of location-based treasure-hunting games for my
practice-based PhD.
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Research and Writing
In my September 2018 blog post, I described how I arrived at the overarching concept
for The Timekeeper’s Return – a time-travelling historical researcher called Dr.
Mia Augustina, whose time machine, the astrolabe, malfunctions and traps her in
the past. I briefly talked about how this concept then informed the graphic
design and organisation of the treasure hunt.
However, I’ve yet to describe my
experiences of creating the story upon which the event was based, which
involved undertaking research to uncover the most evocative details from the
Cathedral Quarter’s history, and then writing about them in an engaging way.
I can split up the sources for my
research roughly into three categories: online sources, the local history
section of the public library, and individuals/businesses.
For my online research, aside
from looking up odds and ends relating to the histories I’d already been working
on, there were certain individual websites that I regularly turned to for
historic information upon which I could base my writing.
One of the most useful websites
was Machadoink, which is essentially an
index of historic Canterbury.
One particular section of this
site, called ‘Canterbury Streets’,
allowed me to delve into the records of each building on every street contained
within the Cathedral Quarter, including those that are no longer there. The
pages for each street are populated with old news items, photographs, public
records, and other curiosities that provided a wealth of information I could
use to build a picture of interesting historic events or characters.
Another source of online
inspiration was the excellent public Facebook page ‘Canterbury: Remembering it as it was’, where old photographs,
stories and other historical records are regularly shared and discussed by
local residents.
I was keen to ensure that my representations
of the histories I’d studied were as accurate as possible, and this is
typically where I turned to my old friend, the National Library of Scotland website, for its extensive collection of historic
Ordnance Survey maps. These helped me to pinpoint the locations of particular
buildings, landmarks and roads over 100 years ago, whose layout has changed
considerably in the time since.
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| Ordnance Survey map published in 1907 showing part of central Canterbury, including the Cathedral Quarter |
As for how I found resources at
the local library, this involved simply browsing every book on the shelves in
the Local History section and picking out those I thought would have the most
information relevant to the Cathedral Quarter.
These mostly turned out to be accounts
of the WW2 Baedeker raids, which devastated one half of the area, as well as
reports from archaeological excavations in the areas around Burgate.
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| Map showing bomb sites in Canterbury from the 1942 Baedecker raids |
Some of the most tantalising leads
came from the individuals and businesses I consulted during the research stage,
which I could follow up on and develop in my writing.
The Cathedral Quarter team and I
sent around emails asking the local businesses to send me any information they
knew or could find about the history of their premises, or anywhere else in the
Cathedral Quarter area.
The responses ranged from quite
detailed records to anecdotal rumours that had passed down between owners,
which I could then explore further using other sources.
For example, one of the
businesses had heard that their building featured as the home of one of the characters
in Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield.
Given the significance of Charles
Dickens in the literary history of Kent and the UK, I decided to investigate
the rumour further online, and discovered even more connections between the
author and sites in the Cathedral Quarter. As a result, this slice of
Canterbury history became a recurring theme in the treasure hunt’s story.
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| From my research into Charles Dickens' connections with the Cathedral Quarter |
Additionally, for the first time,
I went on one of the official guided tours of Canterbury’s historic centre.
This started at the Buttermarket and weaved its way through the Cathedral
precincts, and then onto other parts of the city centre.
As well as containing some useful
tidbits of information I could draw on in my own stories, I was struck by how
effective the demonstrative qualities of the tour were. The guides are very
adept at directing visitors’ attention to parts of their surroundings that
illustrate the very history they’re describing, and I soon realised that my
treasure hunt needed to do the same – to curate people’s journey through, and
perspectives of, the built environment in such a way that brings the history of
the area to life.
The clearest way this manifested
in The Timekeeper’s Return was a QR code text in Butchery Lane that directed
people’s gaze from one side of the street to the other, to demonstrate the
impact that World War 2 had on this part of Canterbury. Despite looking very
similar, one half of the street is lined with buildings that are centuries old,
while the other half was all rebuilt after devastating bombing.
Once I’d gathered enough historic
detail from my research to use in the treasure hunt, the next task was to
incorporate this material within a series of short QR code texts that would be
compelling to read and encourage the reader to explore further.
While it was not long before I
had some initial rough drafts and outlines for some of the QR codes, the first
text that I wrote in full – and the one that shaped my approach to the rest of
the writing – was one that took an interesting piece of local history and made
it relatable and moving on a personal level.
The information in question
concerned the construction of the cathedral’s Bell Harry Tower – not only a key
symbol of the Cathedral Quarter, but the iconic sight that has greeted pilgrims
to Canterbury since 1498.
I’d managed to uncover some
fantastic trivia about the intricate pulley system by which the building
materials were raised, and how the structure is surprisingly mostly composed of
bricks.
But in considering what emotional
resonance the construction of the tower might have for my participants, I
started to wonder what kind of toll this labour took on those involved at the
time.
I managed to find some academic
texts that considered the life and livelihood of medieval masons, learning how
they led a largely nomadic existence, spending very long spans of time away
from their families, only to return for a short time before taking on their
next round of employment.
Indeed, the master mason in
charge of Bell Harry, John Westall, was not from Canterbury at all. Being
renowned in his profession, demand for his services took him to Suffolk,
Cambridgeshire and Essex before Canterbury.
I found it quite moving to think
of someone dedicating years of their life to a building that would define the
future of Canterbury, and enduring all the hardships this work involved, despite
not even being from the city.
Of course, there’s a limit to the
amount of ‘life story’ you can convey in a few hundred words. But what I could
do in the QR code text was light a little spark of awareness, from which
participants might sympathise with the kinds of sacrifices that made the
Cathedral Quarter what it is today.
From this first complete story
onwards, the main objective of my writing was finding ways to transmit the
emotional currents of the historic events I was recounting, within the
narrative frame of a time-travelling researcher. The story wasn’t supposed to
be a history lesson, but an invitation to connect with the timelines of the
Cathedral Quarter on a personal level.
Now, let’s talk about the actual
act of writing.
My relationship with writing is
very much love-hate.
The times when I can look back on
my work and be happy with how it reads are wonderfully satisfying.
But equally I tend to find the
process torturous. My pet hate is not being able to conjure up the right words
to precisely express what I want to say.
Instead of doing what is always
recommended to writers – just getting what you want to say on paper and then
editing it later – I tend to leave huge gaps in the middle of sentences and
paragraphs where I haven’t yet found the appropriate terms to use. This means
that writing for me tends to be a gradual process of ‘filling in the gaps’.
If you have lots of rough but
finished drafts of a piece, a least you have something ‘complete’, even if it
needs adjustments.
The problem with my method is
that nothing is ever complete until it’s basically as good as it’s going to
get.
This undoubtedly lengthened the
time it took for me to finish all of the QR code texts, and for them to be
uploaded to the Cathedral Quarter website. I was very grateful for the patience
of the Cathedral Quarter team and the website designers as I toiled tirelessly
on getting the writing to the best standard I could before the event.
Perfectionism isn’t my only
writing foible. Anyone who knows me well will know that I really struggle to
write concisely.
The problem isn’t that I ‘pad
out’ my writing with pointless information. Anyone who proofreads my work finds
it difficult to recommend which bits of my writing to cut.
Rather, the problem is that
everything I include seems relevant and useful, which makes the process of culling
even harder.
For a project like this, though,
there was no room for leeway. The aim wasn’t to have people standing around for
ages reading text on their phones, but instead to get them looking around and
noticing things in their surroundings; discovering people and places that they
didn’t know about before.
Ultimately, this meant that I had
to limit my ambitions for the narrative. There simply wasn’t space to include
several interweaving subplots and intricate details, which might work well in
something like a novel, where the reader is expecting to take their time delving
into the text, but not for this kind of outdoor, interactive narrative
experience.
I suppose what I realised was
that the depth of intrigue and immersion that I wanted to inspire during the
event had to come predominantly from the player’s physical surroundings, rather
than just my words.
One technique I did use to make
my writing more digestible is to make sure that my paragraphs were always only
one or two sentences long. This is something I’ve learnt from blogging, where
I’ve found that readers are more willing to keep scrolling when the text is
broken into smaller chunks. It also tends to mean that individual sentences can
have more impact and convey dramatic tension more readily.
I also borrowed an interesting method
from scriptwriting for TV series. That summer of 2018, I re-watched the entire
first series of the modern Doctor Who (my absolute favourite), and started looking
into the process through which Russell T Davies and his writing team managed to
make each episode so affecting, while having a clear purpose in the wider arc
of the series.
I learnt that for each episode
they assigned a word that encompassed the ‘tone’ they wanted the episode to
have, which was always reflected clearest in its denouement – the part of the
story that determines the emotional residue the audience is left with.
By keeping a clear emotional
signature in focus as I wrote each QR code text, and reinforcing this in its
denouement when Mia expressed her thoughts as she departed to the next point in
time, I was able to carefully direct the emotional undercurrents of the story,
despite the shortage of words available for me to use.
In the end, though, I would say
that I just about reached the upper limit on what was acceptable in terms of
length. Even though this required some very difficult decisions in terms of sentences
and paragraphs that needed to be culled, any longer and some participants might
have found it all too much to get their heads around.
As it turned out, the length of
the final texts turned out to be enough to include a significant amount of
historic and narrative detail without compromising their engagement in the
activity.
The last thing I want to talk
about here is the music that so effectively kept me inspired and focused throughout
the writing process.
Nowadays I often find that my work
flows best when I listen to orchestral or neo-classical music, from artists
such as Olafur Arnalds, Zoe Keating and Message to Bears.
While writing the story for
The Timekeeper’s Return, I’d been watching a wonderful anime called Violet
Evergarden. It’s a stunning series that beautifully explores what it means to
feel emotions and communicate them after traumatic pasts or during challenging
circumstances, and part of what makes it so special is its orchestral score.
I found a YouTube video with the full
soundtrack and listened to it pretty much on repeat for the duration of
September and October 2018. By the end of September I was so infatuated with it
that I actually ordered the CD of the soundtrack directly from Japan, so those
involved in creating it would receive as much of my money as possible.
I think that the reason this
music resonated so deeply with my practice was the result of my aim to capture
the emotional half-life of the historic events I was describing. When I was
listening to the soundtrack, there would be these uncanny moments of attunement
between the nuances of the music and the feelings I was attempting to evoke in
the QR code texts.
So as well as helping me to
zone-in on the task (when I didn’t just sit there and appreciate it), I’m
convinced that this music subconsciously shaped my writing style.
You can listen to the full
soundtrack here. All of it is genuinely
wonderful and I would love to highlight so many of the tracks; but if you could
only listen to one, I’d say it would have to be ‘Across the Violet Sky’. It’s simply awe-inspiring.
So, after several challenging
weeks of writing and 7388 words later, the QR code texts were complete and
ready to be uploaded.
But the real test of the story I
had devised, and the treasure hunt as a whole, would be in the playing.
The next post in
the Making the Timekeeper’s Return series reflects on the process of testing
the treasure hunt.
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